THE DEPARTURE
Okay, D-day! The day that I've beenwaiting for! I could even barely sleep the night before. The day Iwas going to meet my idols that I had been seeing through computerand TV screens is finally here! Imagine the anxiety and excitementmixed up altogether.
My friend, Felicia, and I took off fromschool at 1.00 pm, a bit off than the time we planned on leaving,which would have been at 12 pm. Felicia and I, who happened to beclassmates, first thought of attending our class at 12.30 pm seeingthat there might be some important stuff we definitely didn't want tomiss in class – it was an art studio class. So sometimes things inclass could get a little unpredictably busier. However, we decided toskip it and went over to pick Sammi up (she's our friend that got 12tickets all in one place, remember) before we took off to the venue.
The trip to Shoreline Amphitheatre inGoogle campus, Mountainview, only took a couple of minutes fromCupertino. So now you know how close the concert site really is andhow I would have been extremely sad if I had missed it. Theamphitheatre itself was located in the farthest side of the solemn,seemingly quiet Google campus, possibly it was already close to thecoastal line. From the outside view, the amphitheatre already lookedlike it was a big venue that would hold around 50,000 somethingpeople. I could imagine a huge concert with almost a dozen of kingsand queens of Hallyu performing there.
Finding a parking space was not thathard. In fact, by the time Felicia, Sammi, and I got there, which wasat 2, there were still plenty of spots. We were lucky...only when itcomes to finding a parking space. The audience line, however, as wesaw it while finding a parking space, already stretched as long as itcould be. Apparently, the line was divided into two: one is for thosewith actual tickets and the other one is for those who hold theconfirmation slip and would like to exchange them with actualtickets. The three of us hurriedly went to the end of the line forthose with the confirmation slip. I'm telling you, it was ONE LONGLINE.
On the way to the end of the line, weheard some songs rumbled off from inside the venue. The artists weredoing sound-check apparently.
THE LINE
Trouble ensued when we were on theline. Given that Sammi had 12 tickets and a lot of her and my friendswere interested to have them, we kind of had a problem contacting ourfriends who intended to claim their position for the tickets. Ourfriends got lost in the middle of searching for us in the line, soFelicia, Sammi, and I had to take turns to pick our friends up to ourspot in the line. Not to mention, we could have been lucky as well,as I figured out that my schoolmate was in the same line as ours, acouple of feet away from our spot. We intended to cut through and gotto his spot (that way it would have been like he was saving a spotfor us), but again, since Sammi would have 12 people sticking aroundwith her – as she was the main ticketholder – and having 12people cutting the line would have been inappropriate, we needed tostay at where we were.
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| The super long line |
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| Felicia looks tired enough to wait in the line ...but at least she's still smiling :) |
After series of callings and “whereare you?” bombardments, everyone finally managed to get to thevenue. The ticketing staff went along the line, asking people in theline to show the confirmation slips before she exchanged them withthe actual tickets.
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| The print-out of the confirmation slip |
Finally! The actual ticket became the sole proofthat we finally managed and are confirmed to see our idols performinglive! This is for real!
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| THE REAL TICKETS YO!!!! |
THE COUNTDOWN
The line moved faster than we thoughtand we eventually found ourselves already inside the venue. Thenewcomers, Elda, Jenifer, and Jason, stuck with me. We were split upfrom Felicia and Sammi. There was one slightly heartbreaking moment,and that it was when we weren't allowed to get to the seating area.This one big security guy swept us to the lawn area. Four of ushurriedly settled in the spot that had the closest view to the stage,near the fence that bordered the lawn area with the seating one.
Don't get me wrong. The spot where Iwas, despite being in the lawn area, had a considerably good view ofthe stage! Even better, I equipped myself with a small binocular Ibought the other day. It turns out the binocular really helped!Because now I got to see the much closer look of the stage! It evenlooked soooo close that it almost looked like the stage itself wasright in front of me. I'm not kidding. I gave my binocular the creditfor all of my spazzing that night.
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| Image credit to Felicia Johanna |
My heart couldn't stop pounding whenthe show came to a start. Half and hour before the show started, thetwo huge screens at the sides of the stage were playing Youtubeadvertisements, showing artists whose show have been streamed livefrom Youtube, including Jason Mraz and Common. Then, approaching thepreliminary show, the screens played an MBC advertisement thatfeatured dramas and shows once broadcast in the television channel,also a promotional video of Korea. Audience screamed whenever thevideo changed, even though they were played over and over again.Even, there was one time where the venue played Girls' Generation Oh!and the fans went hype, even ifthe show hadn't started yet.
A series ofscreaming and cheering following the camera panning towards the fans,the preliminary show MC came out. The preliminary show included therepresentatives from Google and MBC who were present to give theopening speech and thank-yous. This is when I got to learn that theshow was held in celebration of Youtube conjoining with Google for amajor event, or something like that, with MBC sponsored to invite theperformers.
Before the concertofficially began, the MC repeatedly reminded all the audience to sitdown. Even the stage could be clearly seen from my spot even though Isat on the grass, but troubles started to ensue when some people infront of me tried to stand up, blocking my view from the stage. Hownice.
The officialcountdown finally started. The countdown video (starting in 2minutes) featured glimpses of music videos of artists who were goingto perform in the concert. Hysteria was in the air. I was so lost inthe atmosphere just when the countdown struck 0:00.
Playlist:
SHINee - A-yo
Kings of Convenience - Misread
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